Hugh shrugged, trying to be insolent. But all it did was set him off-balance, and he nearly slid off his stool.

“One hour,” Daniel said, and he walked away.

Hugh slumped over his drink, but he knew that in one hour, he would be standing in front of the Rose and Crown, preparing for the next leg of the journey. If anyone else—anyone at all—had stood before him and ordered him to be ready in an hour, he would have marched out of the inn and never turned back.

But not Daniel Smythe-Smith. And he suspected Daniel knew that.

Whipple Hill

nr. Thatcham

Berkshire

Six days later

The ride to Whipple Hill had been nothing short of miserable, but now that she was here, it occurred to Sarah that perhaps she had been lucky to have spent her first three days with a swollen ankle trapped in the Pleinsworth coach. The ride might have bumped and jostled, but at least she’d had a logical reason to remain off her feet. More to the point, everyone else was stuck in one place on their bottoms, as well.

No longer.

Daniel was determined that the week leading up to his wedding should be the stuff of legend, and he had planned every imaginable diversion and entertainment. There would be outings and charades and dancing and a hunt and at least twelve other wondrous pastimes that would be revealed as necessary. Sarah would not have put it past him to offer juggling lessons on the lawn. Which, by the by, she knew he could do. He’d taught himself when he was twelve and a traveling fair had passed through town.

Sarah spent her first full day in residence trapped in the room she was sharing with Harriet with her foot propped up on pillows. Her other sisters had come to visit, as had Iris and Daisy, but Honoria was still at Fensmore, enjoying a few days of privacy with her new husband before traveling down. And while Sarah appreciated her relatives stopping by to entertain her, she was less enthralled by their breathless accounts of all the amazingly fabulous events taking place outside her bedroom door.

Her second day at Whipple Hill passed in much the same manner, except that Harriet took pity on her and promised to read her all five acts of Henry VIII and the Unicorn of Doom, which had been recently renamed The Shepherdess, the Unicorn, and Henry VIII. Sarah could not understand why; there was no mention of a shepherdess anywhere. She had nodded off for only a few minutes. Surely she could not have missed a character pivotal enough to merit a mention in the title of the play.

The third day was the worst. Daisy brought her violin.

And Daisy knew no short pieces.